Sunday, September 30, 2018, 7pm Hearst Greek Theatre Yo-Yo Ma,

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) e Complete Cello Suites

Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007 Prélude – – – – Menuet I and II –

Suite No. 2 in , BWV 1008 Prélude – Allemande – Courante – Sarabande – Menuet I and II – Gigue

Suite No. 3 in , BWV 1009 Prélude – Allemande – Courante – Sarabande – Bourrée I and II – Gigue

Suite No. 4 in E-flat Major, BWV 1010 Prélude – Allemande – Courante – Sarabande – Bourrée I and II – Gigue

Suite No. 5 in , BWV 1011 Prélude – Allemande – Courante – Sarabande – I and II – Gigue

Suite No. 6 in , BWV 1012 Prélude – Allemande – Courante – Sarabande – Gavotte I and II – Gigue

is evening’s performance will be performed without intermission and will last approximately two hours and 15 minutes.

This performance is made possible, in part, by Patron Sponsors Nadine Tang and Bruce Smith. Major support provided by The Bernard Osher Foundation. Cal Performances’ 2018 –19 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo.

5

PROGRAM NOTES

ach’s cello suites have been my constant in my late twenties; it was a time of new pur - musical companions. For almost six pose in my life: thanks to the extraordinary Bdecades, they have given me sustenance, support and devotion of my wife, Jill, I had suc - comfort, and joy during times of stress, cele - cessfully undergone major spinal surgery, and bration, and loss. What power does this we were looking forward to starting a family. possess that even today, aer 300 years, it Sheldon Gold, the visionary founder of ICM continues to help us navigate through troubled Artists and my manager at the time, challenged times? What did find in this music me to perform and record the suites. I felt it was that made him devote his life to bringing it a somewhat brazen idea: who was I to do what to the world? And why am I sharing it with many older artists waited decades to accom - you, today? plish? But I believed then, as I still do, that a ree memories from early life return when - recording is a snapshot of a moment, and it was ever I play or hear the suites. My father taught music that I had been living with since I was me the first suite, measure by measure, when a child. e recording captured my deep grati - I was four years old, and I remember as a child tude for a new lease on life. the aesthetic pleasure of finding just the right I was entering my forties when I recorded the space and timing between the gentle landing suites a second time. For years, I had been re - of the last note of the Sarabande and the slight ceiving letters from children and adults writing increase of energy in the Menuet’s initial lilt. to say how this music inspired them. I wanted e second memory is from my father, a vio - to share the suites’ creative force with more linist who spent World War II in both China people, so I decided to perform an experiment. and France. He used to tell me about the utter What if I asked a number of deeply imaginative loneliness he felt in occupied Paris during the artists—choreographers, filmmakers, and a gar - blackout, and how he would spend his days den designer—to each immerse themselves in memorizing Bach sonatas and partitas, then a different suite? What would emerge from play them to himself at night. e final memory their art forms? e result was Inspired by Bach , is of discovering the words of my musical hero. six films documenting this process of immer - I was a teenager when I first read the memoirs of sion and creation. Pablo Casals and found a philosophy for music So, why a third time? and life that resonated then as it does now, even Now that I’m in my sixties, I realize that my more strongly: I am a human being first, a mu - sense of time has changed, both in life and in sician second, and a cellist third. music, at once expanded and compressed. I am Over the years, I came to believe that, in conscious of the fact that my grandson Teddy— creating these works, Bach played the part of a my daughter Emily’s firstborn—will be 83 in the musician-scientist, expressing precise observa - year 2100, and that, as I write this, we are just tions about nature and human nature. He did months away from the 100th anniversary of the so, in the first three suites, by experimenting end of World War I, the Great War that was with all that the cello can do as a solo instru - meant to end all wars. ment. In the final three, he demanded even My son Nicholas recently reminded me that more of the cello, and of himself, asking a when Fred Rogers, of Mister Rogers’ Neigh bor - single-line instrument to speak in multiple hood , was asked where he turned in times of voices. His compositional invention is at once crisis, he repeated his mother’s advice to “look explicit and implicit, requiring the listener’s for the helpers.” Casals, my father and I, and unconscious ear to fill in what the cello can only countless others found a helper in Bach. Music, suggest, achieving a sonic and architectural like all of culture, helps us to understand our richness that ultimately transcends the instru - environment, each other, and ourselves. Culture ment itself. helps us to imagine a better future. Culture I’ve just finished my third recording of these helps turn “them” into “us.” And these things works. e first time I recorded the suites I was have never been more important.

Opposite: Yo-Yo Ma, photo by Jason Bell.  PROGRAM NOTES

is concert is just one stop on a journey to internalized. Nevertheless, the share this music with people seeking equilib - in this music, the backbone of everything that rium and solace at a moment of unprecedented Bach wrote, is in no way less sophisticated or change. I share this music, which has helped developed. shape the evolution of my life, with the hope erein lies, perhaps, one of the secrets of that it might spark a conversation about how these works’ power, and why it strikes me as culture can be a source of the solutions we need. essential music for us in the 21st century. Much It is one more experiment, this time a search for of the counterpoint is implied, le for the per - answers to the question: What can we do to - former to make those suggested connections gether that we cannot do alone? clear and for the listener to fill in the longer I invite you to join me on this adventure, line. ere is a very practical reason for this, to listen and be inspired by the helpers in your a challenge that Bach must have embraced in - own life. tentionally when he chose to write such solois - —Yo-Yo Ma tic and difficult music for the cello, which had been until then used only as an accompanying For more about the Bach suites project, visit instrument to support a melody or reinforce bach.yo-yoma.com and explore #cultureinaction. a realized figured bass. It is difficult enough to produce three or four tones simultaneously on a violin. On a cello’s longer strings, the distance hy do Bach’s iconic cello suites, writ - between the notes requires a greater stretch of ten three centuries ago, remain so the hand to move between them, and the gaps Wenduring today? at Bach’s bril - between the strings require more time to make liance is timeless, while true, seems to me a bit those connections. Furthermore, Bach le facile, and not specific enough. ese pieces little by way of direction for interpreting the present enigmatic contradictions, posing spe - phrasing and dynamics, or even the speed or cial challenges for a performer and requiring pulse of the music. Outside of the dance titles, unusual attention and immersion for a listener. there are no indications even of tempo. e e core of Bach’s musical world, as would be contrapuntal direction, the harmonic motion, expected in the cultural and social climate of and the form in the purely melodic movements his time and place, was his deep religious de - like the Gigue in the E-flat Major Suite, or the votion and service to the church; and yet, these Sara bande in the C minor Suite, are all clear, works, among other equally secular master - but not fully spelled out. e implied connec - pieces that he composed during an especially tions, hidden poly phony, and artless expression fruitful period in Köthen between 1717 and require exceptional creativity from the per - 1723, achieve a profound intimacy exceptional former and engagement from the listener, even for his genius. ere is no dramatic eccle - establishing an unusual relationship between siastical narrative in these stylized dances—this cellist and audience. is Bach at his most abstract, which might ac - Transcending even Bach’s profound devout - count for why the music seems to demand such ness, these works are statements of faith pared focus from the listener. Bach’s mastery of com - down to their purest essence. When Yo-Yo Ma plex counterpoint, on virtuosic display in so asked me to write these few sentences, it gave much of his music, from large-scale choruses me the opportunity to reconsider both the to his solo organ works, does not seem at first music and his approach to it. It is sometimes hearing to be at the heart of these suites. And difficult to be objective about a friend with there is no question that there is the appear - whom one has been close since earliest child - ance of less polyphony in the cello suites than hood, as is the case with Yo-Yo and me. It has in his solo sonatas and partitas for violin, always been clear to me that his generosity which date from the same period. In the cello of spirit as a musician has been fueled by the suites, there is less that is explicit, more that is two impulses essential to understanding these

 PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES works: boundless curiosity, and a fervent need is so intimate that listening to them can feel to communicate. Yo-Yo could play every note akin to eavesdropping. And still—their com - of the suites from memory even before he and municative power and touching humanity can I met, 55 years ago. Since then, he has contin - bring thousands of silent and rapt listeners ually searched for the music that happens be - together into a mesmerized communion with tween the notes, and the mysterious and Bach. is is private music; but, amidst the private nature of these works now fuels his noise of our time, I am convinced that the pri - fertile creativity with even deeper breath, with vate conversation has never been more urgent even more disciplined freedom and unhurried and vital. insight. e stylized dances that animate the —Michael Stern pulse of these movements were not meant to accompany actual dancing—and similarly, Michael Stern is music director of the Kansas City and to a large degree, they seem not really Symphony and Yo-Yo Ma’s life-long friend and meant for public performance. Even at their colleague. ese thoughts are adapted from the most joyous, the music seems ill-suited to ex - liner notes to Six Evolutions , Yo-Yo Ma’s new troverted or public display; and at their most recording of the suites. For more about the Bach meditative, the suspension of breath and time suites project, visit yo-yoma.com.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Yo-Yo Ma’ s multifaceted career is testament tions around the world, iconic venues that to his enduring belief in culture’s power to gen - encompass our cultural heritage, our current erate trust and understanding. Whether per - creativity, and the challenges of peace and un - forming new or familiar works from the cello der standing that will shape our future. Each repertoire, collaborating with communities and concert will be an example of culture’s power institutions to explore culture’s role in society, to create moments of shared understanding, or engaging unexpected musical forms, Yo-Yo as well as an invitation to a larger conversation strives to foster connections that stimulate the about culture, society, and the themes that con - imagination and reinforce our humanity. nect us all. With partners from around the world and Yo-Yo Ma was born in 1955 to Chinese par - across disciplines, he creates programs that ents living in Paris. He began to study the cello stretch the boundaries of genre and tradition to with his father at age four and three years later explore music-making as a means not only to moved with his family to New York City, where share and express meaning, but also as a model he continued his cello studies with Leonard for the cultural collaboration he considers Rose at the Juilliard School. Aer his conser - essential to a strong society. Expanding upon vatory training, he sought out a liberal arts this belief, in 1998 Yo-Yo established Silkroad, a education, graduating from Harvard Univer - collective of artists from around the world who sity with a degree in anthropology in 1976. He create music that engages their many traditions. has performed for eight American presidents, is year, Yo-Yo begins a new journey, set - most recently at the invitation of President ting out to perform ’s Obama on the occasion of the 56th Inaugural six suites for solo cello in one sitting in 36 loca - Ceremony.

